They began that renegotiation. They asked a UN representative to come up and explain the incursions. They argued and debated and expostulated; and shouted in each other’s faces. Out in the outback, locals confronted settlers, and some of them on both sides threatened violence; and others stepped in and started talking, cajoling, scolding, wrangling, negotiating; and shouting in each other’s faces. At any point in the process, in a thousand different places, things could have turned violent; many people were furious; but cooler heads prevailed. It remained, in most places, at the level of argument. Many feared this could not continue, many did not believe it possible; but it was happening, and the people in the streets saw it happening. They kept it happening. At some point, after all, the mutation of values has to express itself; and why not here, why not now? There were very few weapons on the planet, and it was hard to strike someone in the face, or stick them with a pitchfork, when they were standing there arguing with you. This was the moment of mutation, history in the making, and they could see it right before them, in the streets and on the human hillsides and on the screens, history labile right there in their hands— and so they seized the moment, and wrenched it in a new direction. They talked themselves into it. A new government. A new treaty with Earth. A polycephalous peace. The negotiations would go on for years. Like a choir in counterpoint, singing a great fugue.